


The Deep Road

by Aquavis



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Mental Disintegration, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquavis/pseuds/Aquavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor must confront her past mistakes after the former commander of the Inquisition, Cullen Rutherford, resurfaces as a dying lyrium addict. Bring the hankies. This is going to get depressing, fast. Based on the darkest timeline's epilogue in the Trespasser DLC. Do not read if you do not want to be spoiled.<br/>--<br/>“We found him.” Scout Harding says, brow furrowed. Her eyes curve, low-lidded, as she stares at the floor. “It’s best if you see him yourself.”</p><p>From your desk, you nod and rise to your feet. Finally, you think, Cullen, where have you been? Without a word—you do not need them anyway—you trail behind Scout Harding, anxious and fearful. Something pulls tight the knots in your stomach, pushing the air out of your lungs. Is it true? You breathe with a shallow inhale, lingering too long on the lips. Is he really here?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“We found him.” Scout Harding says, brow furrowed. Her eyes curve, low-lidded, as she stares at the floor. “It’s best if you see him yourself.”

From your desk, you nod and rise to your feet. _Finally_ , you think, _Cullen, where have you been?_ Without a word—you do not need them anyway—you trail behind Scout Harding, anxious and fearful. Something pulls tight the knots in your stomach, pushing the air out of your lungs. _Is it true?_ You breathe with a shallow inhale, lingering too long on the lips. _Is he really here?_

Scout Harding opens the door leading to the spare bedroom. Here, in the personal quarters of the Divine, light beams through open windows, and illuminates the hallway. Step by step, your mind buzzes with thoughts of Cullen. _Where have you been?_ You will ask. Would you run towards one another and embrace? Or would you stand on opposite sides of the room, guarded up to avoid the pain? The pain of what? You feel his arms around you, the warmth of his chest, maybe his tears against the tip of your ear. Will you whisper in his ear how much you missed him, how you thought every day of this moment? Would you apologize for dredging up the past, just for one last excuse to see him again? Or would you say nothing at all? Are you past that point now? Would you turn your back on him again?

A sigh rises in Scout Harding’s shoulders as she stops before a white door. “Are you ready?” She asks, her hand on the doorknob.

You swallow. A large lump is forming in your throat. Biting the skin on your lip, you nod slowly. You cannot turn back now. You will see this through. As the door swings open, Scout Harding gestures for you to go in first. Instead, you stand in the doorway, petrified with fear.

A raggedy man sits in the corner of the room. He is folded on top of himself, his legs curled tight inwards to his body. The harsh jut of his bones prods every inch of him. Skin and bones, flesh and filth. That is what is left. Where there would be a face is a sea of hair, long, matted tuffs of mud and blond swelling over skin. From this wheated nest, gazes two eyes, wide and white, empty, unfocused.

Your mouth runs dry. Words have abandoned you and for a moment, you believe you will never be able to speak again. This is your fault, felt in the hardness of your heart. You pulled his leash. You brought him to the water to drink. Commanded him against his will. You did this. This is your fault. The truth is bitter on your tongue. “Are you sure?” You manage to ask, unable to take your eyes away from him. “How do you know?”

Harding takes a deep breath. “Yes,” she replies. “We found him in Val Chevin, begging for copper.” She pauses as if unsure what comes next. In her hesitation, her voice dins to a murmur. “Inquisitor, he isn’t the same person anymore. He's lost all his memories to the lyrium. I don't think he'd even remember...” She glances up, appraising you. There is no anger in her gaze, only immense sorrow. She was always good at empathy. She gives a squeeze to your arm in reassurance. “I’ll be outside, if you need me.”

Your feet carry you towards the man as if pulled by some inexplicable gravity. Like the speckles of stars in the cosmos drawing closer to the black, swirling abyss, anything devoured followed its own set path to this moment. You are here, circling that orbit, the perils laid before you. In your heart, you feel the weight of knowingness, the pain of colliding together with each step you take. You could turn around now, leave the room, never come back, never acknowledge the mistakes you made. But that is not gravity. You are too close, you always have been. You will not turn back. You owe this to him.

You kneel before the man. His panicked eyes scan your face before turning away, wrapping his arms over his head. “Cullen,” you say. The man does not reply. He mumbles under his breath something, something too faint, too distant. You watch him rock back and forth, his chest swaying like a pendulum. Cautiously, you reach for his arm. The sinews beneath your fingers contract and shake. The man flinches in your grip, shivering. “Cullen,” you repeat, “It’s me.”

He looks at you, his eyes flashing in the light before disappearing beneath his eyelids as he blinks. Did he recognize you? _I am different_ , you think quickly, _He knows who I am. The gears in his head are turning and he’ll recall my face, my voice_. His pupils dilute into nothingness and he raises his hand to yours. You try not to flinch at his cold touch. The hands of a dead man. Knobby fingers, gnarled and worn. It doesn’t feel like him. You remember each touch, each caress, shared between secret lovers. Rough skin, calloused, worn, warm. Why does this feel so different? 

Licking his crackled lips, he whispers. It is too quiet to hear in full. You move closer, feeling the heat from his breath, your heart racing faster. The heady breath of his voice is but a curtain of rain against the streets, a vagueness of sound that overflows your ears. His mouth moves, saliva sticking, gnashing between his tongue and gums. “Who… are you?” He whispers. His blackened gaze pierces yours. In that flicker of his bronze irises, you can see a shadow of the Commander, firm and powering. Looking at you the way he used to, at the beginning. But his mind has wandered from you, thinking of something far, distant, waning his attention. He sees right through you. As his eyes pass back and forth between yours, he skims over your face, uninterested. He cannot remember your dark, russet hair nor the worn scar along your right brow. You are foreign, alien, and as he looks at you, you can feel it too. He will never know you.

His gaze falls onto your left arm, the arm you lost to the Breach. Where there was once a forearm, a wrist, a palm, fingers and a thumb, there is only empty space, sealed away by a folded sleeve. Does he remember your mangled arm? When it first began, he would hold that hand in his, kissing away the pain of the anchor as you cried out at night. “I’m here, Petra,” he cooed, “I wish I could take your pain away.” A chartreuse glow crackled the air around him as he enveloped you into his warm arms, still tenderly kissing your palm.

That Cullen is lost to you as the man before you thrashes your other hand away, reminding you of now. “W-where is she?” he says, louder still. His voice is raw, raspy, threaded by wear.

In his sudden anger, you recoil. “Who?”

The words sit heavy in his mouth. He rolls them between his lips like marbles, struggling to connect the sounds. “H-her. The-the… Inquisitor.”

The word wounds you as your stomach drops. You have been holding your breath. Let go. You knew it from the moment you saw him in this room. He could not recognize you. It was too much to ask. “Cullen, I’m the Inquisitor.” You whisper. “Petra.” You cannot tell if you are saying it for him or for you. The words hang like rope and there is no comfort in tying the noose.

A flash strikes Cullen’s face and he lights up. His eyes widen, brows raised. He makes a sound, a strangled cry so soft. Then, all of it is taken away, hidden by confusion and further still, indifference. He turns away from you, shriveling, curling smaller, smaller, until he is almost nothing. Cowering in the corner, tail between his legs, he purses his lips. You do not remember this man. Not this way. Addiction plaited through his brain, eating at the parts that knew you, that loved you, that hated you. There is no Cullen left to save. But the body lives longer than the mind.

Cullen does not recognize you and it burns a hole in your heart. You can feel the tears about to crest but you force it back down. This is your fault. You do not cry. You will not cry. Your heart aches a throbbing pain, but you cannot falter. Not for him. “Can you stand for me, Cullen?" You say quickly, "We’ll draw you a bath. Clean you up.” He does not move but whimpers feebly. You slide closer to him, until your bad arm touches his. “Let me help you, please.”

Cullen looks through his tangled hair. Slowly relenting, he moves his shoulder, enough for you to slip your arm behind him and lift him up. He hangs from you, surprisingly light. His head curls into your chest. You hold onto him as tightly as you can.

You shuffle to the bathroom. Cullen’s feet are heavy on the ground, partially dragging. He cannot walk for short distances, it seems. His feet are mangled and calloused. There is dirt scraped deep beneath his toenails, long jagged cuts along his heels. He must have walked without his boots for a very long time. As you sit him on the lip of the tub, you try to work quickly.

His arms are limp as you remove his shirt. It is heavy in your hands. There are droplets of dried blood everywhere. Between the threads, dirt and grease dig their fingers deep. You cannot tell what colour this shirt once was. It smells like rot and mulch, sweat and bile. His trousers come off just as quick. In his nakedness, his ashy skin clings to his bones, wrapped like leather. You have never seen him so thin. His frailness makes him look small, a fragile child swaddled in years that have been too unkind. _What have you seen,_ you ask yourself, S _uffering at every turn? A stranger’s fleeting gaze? Why did you go, my Commander? Will you ever come back?_ Hunched over, Cullen grunts. He looks past you and curls his fingers on his lap. In these vacant stares, the seductive song of lyrium sings through the cerulean veins that meander along his limbs. That same lyrium that took him away from you. He is the Deep Roads with his cavernous, hanging ribs and jagged, angles of his bones. The abyss is in his eyes and with each part of him you see, you move on step further away from him.

You grab the razor and shaving cream from the drawer. You were good with daggers before, in another lifetime. Was it only just a year ago when you last saw him? A century of being came and passed, sundering Cullen from Petra as the Inquisition came to fall. At the end of the life you both once lived, you stumbled from oblivion, bleary eyed, and the world was strange and distant to you once more. Mixing the cream together, you paint it along his face. Cullen is an outsider to you now, wisp of something long gone. There is a hint of nostalgia surrounded in his newness but it is not the same. His cheeks seem hollower, his jaw sharpened to a sliver, mauve rings circle his eyes. If things had ended differently, you would be laughing right now, painting silly things all over his chin, his nose, his forehead, smiling with the love you once had. It would have been different. You would have shared this life together. But here, you cannot find the will to even smile.

With your silver blade held carefully in your shaking hand, you begin. “S-she… where?” He says, fumbling with his words. 

You do not respond. Whether out of sorrow or fear, you bite your tongue back. But your thumb settles beneath his jaw and you tenderly stroke his face, still holding the razor. Now is not the time to answer. You move the blade with a gentle pull, grazing it over his skin. You reveal his weathered skin, that tiny, crooked scar over the curve of his upper lip, that same scar you kissed over and over… over and over, the most beautiful inch of his body. When you first kissed him there—your trembling lips gazing over his skin because you were so nervous, so afraid—he laughed. He laughed and held your flushed face in his hands. Embarrassed. You had only just minutes before you left again. The Western Approach, to deserts apricot and wide. And yet you were there in his office, running your lips over his as if he was a fleeting grain of time. With a tender smile, he whispered something in your ear, that endearing song you liked. The bird in a pine tree. His heart beat against yours and in that moment, there was just you and him. Everything else could wait.

When you finish shaving him, Cullen is unrecognizable still. This is the first time you have ever seen Cullen clean-shaven and it is somehow unfitting. You need that stubble, you think, that boyish grin. Everything else is sacrilegious.

Now with the scissors, taken from another drawer, you bring them as close as possible to his scalp. This would have been easier if you had asked someone else to do it but you cannot bear that thought. You owe it to Cullen to do this. This was your fault. You cannot make him new again, but you can salvage what days he still has. As the golden tresses fall to his shoulders and lap, you can almost see the Cullen you once knew in this man. What would he say if he were still that same Cullen? A grunt. “You mangled my hair,” your mind hears, as he would hold the strands of hair that fall between his outstretched hands.

 _It’s only hair_ , you think back. But Cullen was always proud of it, his mane of flaxen gold. You have to cut it short. It will be easier to care that way. Your shears slice the brambles of knots and clumps until there is only the seedlings of blond left on his scalp’s fallow. He almost looks young again, without all this hair. Did he look this way in the Ferelden Circle? You wonder. Short sheered and fresh faced like the boy he was in Honnleath. Little boy Cullen.

Sighing, you say, “Cullen, we’re going to move you into the bath. Get you all nice and clean, okay?” You gently lower Cullen into the bathtub as you fill the water. What was once clear is now a murky brown, dotted with strands of gold hair. You sit on the lip of the tub beside Cullen. Even though the water is warm, a coolness sweeps against your skin, prickling the hairs on your neck. Cullen is limp, focusless. You pour a few drops of shampoo over his newly sheared hair. The scent is all wrong. But you cannot think of the smell of Cullen's skin. You have forgotten but you know this shampoo could never come close. As your fingers gently comb though his locks, you massage circles into his scalp. His gaze has turned away from you and he now stares off into the horizon, unblinking. “I’m going to rinse your hair now.” You say. You grab your cloth and rinse it in clean water. The cloth sops the suds away from his eyes, repeating the process until his hair is clean.

Your good hand grabs a cloth and dips it into the bath. As you wipe away the grime from his skin, his scars surface and streak across his body. This little man shrinks, smaller, smaller, as each layer of filth is stripped away. He shrivels before your lathered hand. He is afraid; you feel it in the way he shakes, how his fingers tremble under the suds. For him, a stranger washes his back. That’s all you are, you know, nothing more than a nameless woman missing an arm. Why shouldn’t he feel scared? Transient men walk through his life everyday, robbing him of something with each passing glance, each hushed whisper. But when was the last time anyone gave him the kindness he deserved?

A guttural cry breaks your thoughts. “Arg!” Cullen screams hoarsely, wrestling his hands away from you. “Stay away!” He thrashes in the water, pushing himself against the wall. “Demons, s-stay back!”

“Cullen, it’s alright,” You say, clasping his hand. “I’m here.”

Sweat is rolling down his forehead as his eyes widen. Tears fall freely. “No, don’t take her! Maker, p-please don’t let her go!” He grasps the water by his side in a panic. Eyes darting around the room, he whispers urgently, “Where is my sword? W-where is my sword? I won’t let you take m-me!”

His fists are in the air, preparing for a fight. Instinctively, you jump into the bath, wrestling to control his hands. “Shh,” you say, easily overpowering him into an embrace. You are drenched in water, but you do not care. You hug him as tight as you can, pulling his arms towards your chest. His head fits right into the nook of your shoulder as he cries. His tears fall hot, seeping into your tunic. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Cullen sobs against you, clutching your back with all of his strength. His knuckles are white as he clasps to your collar. “They’ve… k-killed her. She’s not coming back. I… loved her a-a-and… ah!” He utters a dreadful wail, louder than a murmur.

The sound knocks the air from the top of your lungs. With your good hand, you hold the back of his head, slick hair bristling between your knuckles. _Oh Maker, I’m sorry_. Pressing a kiss to his temple, you try not to cry with him. His sweat is cold. You feel his chest drum loudly against yours, warring in opposition. He is aghast surrounded by his nightmares and you are helpless to his cries. 

"Cullen, can you get up?" You ask, trying to help him stand. You struggle to lift him from the water. Your bad arm cannot help you but you are stubborn and you want to help. He slips slightly out of your grasp. “We need to get you out of the bath and dressed, alright?”

He has already forgotten the passing moment and falls silent against you. As he tries to stand, he falls right back into the water, taking you with him. You cannot do this on your own, as much as you may try. 

Tangled in his gangly limbs, you call, “Help! Scout Harding!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first ever Dragon Age fan fic. It originally was just a one-shot, but I ended up splitting it. Comments and critiques are very much welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

From the click of the latch on the door, your quaking heart rises.

Cullen is slack in your arms. He sits awkwardly on his left leg, curled like a white fern beneath him. The nightmare has passed and with it, the sliver of life that burned in his eyes. Where fear rekindled his body, a fire burned. Beneath the sinews and bones, there was the Cullen worth saving. The Cullen you remembered. The Cullen that, despite it all, you could never leave behind. The Cullen now… the Cullen that stares blankly at the wall and sits docile and still. The Cullen that is little more than scaffolding on old ruins. The beauty of his smile, his callous-padded fingers, scruffy blond stubble, is all hidden away by the thing that takes hold of his limbs and brings his mouth to drink. To remove the frame that keeps him standing would gut him.  

This Cullen is only a stranger. Who does not recognize your face, the way you speak, the words you once shared, the heartache and loss. 

Then what does that make him? You are holding on, your knuckles white and trembling to his scarred bones. He is not an object, some figurine to be posed at your will. He is just as alive as you are. He blinks and breathes and thinks and feels and you are debating the very details of his existence as if he is made of nothing more than brick and mortar. Maybe you should be asking yourself, what does this make you?

“Inquisitor!” Comes an urgent voice from the bedroom. Commander Rylen is the first to rush in. He gasps at the sight of Cullen Rutherford, his former superior, laying crumpled in the bathtub, surrounded by a thicket of blond hair on the floor. “Commander…? What happened?” Rylen asks in disbelief, already grabbing Cullen to help him stand. 

Scout Harding is quick on the Commander’s heels. Without stopping to look around, she grabs a towel from the rack. Her hands move nimbly between Rylen’s grasp and your own, wrapping the cloth around Cullen’s limp frame. “Are you alright?”

“Bring him to the bedroom, please.” A sound like your voice murmurs. Your legs are sopping wet as you step out of the tub but you cannot feel it. Your whole body is numb. You follow the three back into the other room. When did Rylen become so strong? He towers over Cullen now, even without standing up straight. Rylen places Cullen on the edge of the bed.

As you carry a towel, Rylen frowns. “I should have told you sooner,” You say, working the cloth over Cullen’s neck and chest, “After all this time, Scout Harding found him like this. I… I tried to clean him up a bit.”

“Lyrium,” He nods bitterly as he watches you dry Cullen. Cullen’s eyes flicker upon hearing the word but Rylen does not care. “It had to be lyrium. Does he know who we are?”

You are silent, not out of a refusal to answer but from paralysing fear. If you say those words, if you acknowledge that Cullen has forgotten everything by speaking it aloud, will that make it real?

Rylen does not wait for your reply. He stands in front of Cullen and hunches over until he is eye to eye, appraising carefully. “Or what about the Inquisition? Do you remember the Inquisitor here?” he gestures, staring expectantly at Cullen. Afternoon light from the bedroom window brightens his face, swallowing his lips into a fine black line. When he is met with a vacant expression, Rylen scowls, the indigo tattoo slicing on his nose crinkling. “That’s not good. He’s gone. He must have Orlesian cheese for brains by now.”

Scout Harding opens the closet and pulls out a long, white nightgown. “Here,” she says as she passes it to you. “Are you alright? If you want, we can take over. You don’t have to do this alone.”

She says it so nonchalantly. _You don’t have to do this alone_. As if she could know this retribution. Her voice passes through your ears like a lapping wave. She meant no harm in her question, you know that. But for every passing moment, there is an itch beneath your skin, a foul miasma corrupting you from within. It crawls up your arms, through your viridian veins. It sits on your tongue as you bite your lip. Guilt. Shame. Anger. Scout Harding does not know what you have done, the words you have said. It was your decision that led Cullen astray. You put the final nail in his lacquered casket, the one that you had prepared for years as his fingers crept between the planks.

You do not deserve kindness for your sins; there can be no absolution from evil but death itself. And when that day comes, you will scream until you are hoarse.

“I’m staying,” You snap. Realizing the harshness to your words, you quickly add, “I should be the one to take care of this.”

Scout Harding nods, defeated. “Okay.”

She knows better than to question you.

Together, the three of you slip the garment over his head. You fumble with the buttons as Harding and Rylen roll down the sleeves. Silently, you curse the seamstresses of Orlais for their frivolous ruffles and yards of ties and laces. Underneath the nightgown, Cullen looks like a ghost, pale and misplaced. Out of time with jagged points, angled limbs.

It takes all of you to move Cullen in bed. You carefully wrap him in sheets and lay a patchwork comforter over him. Like a child, you tuck his arms close, laying his bony hands to his sides. His limbs are rigid; he lays stiffly below the sheets. His stillness reminds you of a dead man in a casket, lowered into a grave of white blankets and Orlesian sunlight. 

Moving away, Rylen crosses his arms, nostrils flared. “There’s little we can do for him. It won’t be long ‘til…” He cautions. Sighing, he looks away, hand pressed against his eyes as if disgusted by the sight. “Maker, he was the best of us and look at him now. We can’t let him suffer. It just wouldn’t be right.”

Scout Harding is quick to speak. Eyebrows raised, she replies, “We can still comfort him here. He deserves that much.”

Seconds pass before Rylen speaks again.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, Rylen, but...” Harding whispers, “How could we? After all this?”

Both Harding and Rylen fall silent. Looking over their shoulders, they frown at the man in the bed, pausing for you to speak. You cannot blame them for leaving this decision to you. Few people want to make a hard choice but you are beyond want and will. You are the Inquisitor. The responsibility thrust upon you calls your name alone, demands your voice, your body, your soul. Care for him here until he passes. Give him all the compassion and love you never could now, knowing he will only decline with time. He will dissolve in your arms, unable to comprehend the world around him, and your wounds will cut open anew as he dies. Even after death takes him away from you, you will still be here. The pain will only linger as the blood on your tongue, tasted with every breath you take.

Or you end his misery. The blade to the throat. Blood on white sheets. He will croak, crying in pain for every agonizing second, afraid. All animals are afraid to die. His eyes will bulge as the death rattle shakes his lips. The blood will gurgle in his throat and his face will grow pale and white. He will only suffer in his last moments but in his mind, he will know that it was you who killed him. You killed the man you once loved out of pity and shame. Because the alternative was no better. You will see your reflection in the glassy sheen of his eyes. Your heart will never forget this betrayal.

Cullen wheezes. You find yourself staring as spittle webs at the corners of his lips. In his bed, he is helpless without you. _Oh, Cullen_ , you think to yourself, _Where is the dignity in dying like this_? A sickness rises in your stomach, twisting and turning. You cannot make these choices, you want to believe. You cannot decide this man’s life. But if you do nothing, then what? You cannot bare that thought. You will not choose. Not now.

You tap the tips of your incisors together and say, “I don’t want anyone in here but you two here. For now, keep quiet. Understood?”

“Yes, Inquisitor.” Scout Harding and Rylen say in unison. They do not know what will happen but neither do you. They will not question you. They know better. You watch them leave, closing the door as they hurry out.

Cullen lays on his back, the sheets still undisturbed around him. You pull up an old wooden chair to the side of the bed, sitting beside him with your elbows on your knees. A part of you wants to retch the sadness from your throat but you keep breathing. _Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t choke. Focus._ You are here for him, not the other way around.

 “What are you thinking about?” You ask, leaning in.

The light catches the curve of his lips. A tremble, soft and faint, quivers his scar like the breeze through the branches. “Where… am I?” he asks, his tongue slowly lapping his lower lip. The flesh is cracked and yellowed.

“Val Royeaux.” You reply. Cullen hated it here. Hates. Hated. Could he even remember how foully he spoke of this place one year ago?

Time passes again before he speaks. The light from the windowsill—now faintly orange with the waning of the day—touches his toes. It has been a few hours since he arrived here and the sun now hangs low in the sky.

“Where is… Uldred?”

Uldred. You have never heard that name before. In your mind’s eye, you sift through eyes and noses and lips and chins. The name Uldred sounds like a rat-faced Templar. Stringy, long hair and veiny hands. Uldred could be Cullen’s friend from Kinloch Hold. Brothers-in-arms or something. However, the more you dwell on this name, the less certain you feel about this assumption. Shaking the vision from your head, you reply, “I don’t know who that is, Cullen.”

Cullen takes a laboured breath. Thoughts circle his mouth, trembling on his bottom lip. “Cullen?” He asks.

You scrunch your eyelids together. _He really doesn’t know who he is anymore,_ you think. His haze cuts you deep, extinguishing the tiny flicker of hope in your heart. _Maker, how could this happen? He didn’t deserve this._ Droplets of tears cluster between your eyelashes but you force them back, as if slowing the tide of sadness could keep you from feeling this pain. “That’s you.” You say, “Cullen Stanton Rutherford.”

_You were the commander of the Inquisition. You wore that red pelted cloak and played chess in the garden. You used to sit with Dorian and talk about the weather. You loved obsidian coffee in cool clay mugs, and the smell of sharpened silverite. Bitter winter winds that swept up your red mantle, and warm, wool socks knitted from your sister. Big mabari hounds with white freckly spots and slobbery kisses, and small books that fit in the palm of your hand. That was you. Cullen Rutherford. The man I fell in love with._

_Not whoever you are now._

A moment of silence falls between you. You half expect him to ask something else but he does not say anything more. As if content with his knowledge, he lies still in bed, sheets perturbed by his frail body. Then, as he stares at the ceiling, a whisper, “W…who are you?”

“My name is Petra,” you answer, your focus on something dredged years in the past. The tiniest song that flitters in and out of your memory. If you close your eyes, you can hear it in your ear, humming with you as you whisper, “Petra. Little bird in the pine tree.”

Cullen sang that song for you. He held you, rocking you back and forth on his bed. His breath grazed your skin, hot against your neck, stubble tickling your cheeks. “Gaily singing songs so sweet, my lovely Petra, Petra, sweet.”

Your fingers intertwined together as he wrapped his arms tighter around you. “Did you make that up?” You asked, smiling incredulously. “I didn’t know you could sing.”

Cullen beamed back against your cheek. In the early days, before the lyrium, there was time for these fragments of time. It was just you and him. Not Commander and Inquisitor. Cullen and Petra. “I did. It took me all day but I wanted to.” As you sighed in content, he pressed a soft kiss to the shell of your ear. “Have I told you I adore you?”

“Yes,” you replied, bringing his arms around you tightly. “But I like hearing it.”

He laughed into the braids of your hair. “Well then,” He whispered softly. His lips wandered to your neck and as he spoke, he left small kisses trailing up and down your prickled skin. “You are unlike everything I have ever known. Everything I could ever know. You make me happier than I could ever imagine.”

Love. Is that what you are doing now? What you had is buried in the past, beneath the requisitions and reports. The Cullen you love died for the commander you needed. If you believed in resurrection, maybe your love could be enough to bring him back. But that is not possible. Then, why are you here? Why are you doing this? Are you staying here because you love him or because you are sorry? You cannot tell the difference anymore. You are selfish, remorseful, angry, and bereaved all at once. Every feeling and memory bleeds into itself. Clarity gone.

Cullen looks upwards. The corners of his mouth move, faintly trembling into a bow. He is smiling. His eyes soften as he watches the ceiling. There must be something that makes him happy, even now. “Petrel,” he says softly, as if struggling to remember. “Petrel.”

A seabird circling overhead, so far from the water. It cries endlessly, a bittersweet call amongst the clouds as the sun sets over the White Spire. In the rouge and magenta of the brilliant sky, it dives and soars until it is nothing more than a spot on the horizon.

Then, Cullen whispers, “Where am I?”

You purse your lips. You do not know what to say. His mind is slipping with each breath, each blink, swimming in blank fog.  

“You’re lost, Cullen. And I can’t find you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


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